The soldier’s 35-year sentence means the end of the rule of law. It terminates the ability of the press and the public to hold power accountable. And it presages the rise of a government under which the just will become criminals.

Harry Reid has provoked outrage among liberals as well as conservatives, who seem to believe he has violated propriety by repeating gossip about Mitt Romney’s taxes. But Reid’s critics simply have no way of knowing whether he is telling the truth or not.

Forgotten history is like a rake neglected in the national backyard. Soon enough you’ll return to where you left it, and if you step on its teeth, it’ll swing up and hit you in the face. (Above, McCarthy and, at right, a caricature of Rep. Allen West.)

President Obama’s decision to not veto the defense authorization bill, which “would codify indefinite detention without trial into U.S. law for the first time since the McCarthy era,” is a “historic tragedy,” Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann apparently understood that she needed to do a little spin control following her jaw-dropping flirtation with McCarthyism on “Hardball” last week, but she apparently didn’t feel the need to apologize to anyone, judging by her latest campaign spot.

The ghoulish comic “Tales From the Crypt” is taking a spooky look at the possibility of a Sarah Palin presidency. An editorial by Gathy Gaines Mifsud, daughter of publisher William Gaines—a target of a ghastly 1950s Senate investigation on censorship—rails against Palin and her reported McCarthy-esque book-banning stunts while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

Shades of McCarthyism? In her televised rundown of practically all of the anti-Obama talking points conjured up this election season, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., calls the Illinois senator (and other “liberals” in Washington) “anti-American” on Friday’s “Hardball.”